Coach won’t risk it after ACBL allows players who left state to come back without quarantine
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff
NORTHFIELD — The Atlantic County Baseball League playoffs started Monday short one team.
The eight teams in the league were split into two divisions for the double-elimination tournament, but the Northfield Cardinals opted out over fears about the COVID-19 pandemic.
Coach Joe Bunting, a pharmacist from Linwood who owns Bunting Family Pharmacy on Route 9 in Northfield, said he learned late last week that as many as six players — none on his team — were traveling to North Carolina for a separate tournament and did not self-quarantine when they returned, as per state and league regulations.
He said he contacted Yogi Hiltner, president of the ACBL and coach of the Margate Hurricanes, to ask him what he planned to do about the players who were in a state-designated “hot zone” for the pandemic, and was told they would have their temperatures taken before games and could play if cleared.
Bunting said the league agreed before the season to follow guidance from the governor and state Department of Health when dealing with COVID concerns, and that would require the players to self-quarantine for 14 days.
Hiltner told him that wasn’t going to happen, Bunting said.
He said the league went with a 12-game season and 10 or so days of playoffs instead of 24 games and three and a half weeks of playoffs because of the late start due to the pandemic.
“Everybody knows what’s going on with COVID — it’s been a horrible year for everybody,” Bunting said. “We tried our best to try to create normalcy for the players.”
All players — traditionally age 18 to 25 but ranging from 16 to their mid-30s — had to agree to follow proper social distancing, hand sanitizing and other requirements to play, including following the state’s guidelines.
Bunting, 44, who played in the ACBL from age 16 to 24, began coaching eight years ago after the former coach quit and the city had no team for a year — the first time in 30 years, Bunting said — winning the championship in 2018.
Bunting said he had a star player who had visited his mother in North Carolina before the season started and he told him he could not play this season.
Bunting said after Hiltner told him he would let the players in question take the field, he asked if Hiltner would be willing to assume responsibility if someone were infected with the virus and was told that the entire league would be responsible.
“I said ‘I’m not assuming anything.’ I’m a health care professional and I will not put my team at risk,’” Bunting said. “I have a moral obligation to Atlantic County for not promoting the spread of COVID.”
He said he tried one final time to get Hiltner to change his mind and remove the players who should have been quarantined or he would have to pull his team, and was told “OK, you’re done.”
Bunting said there are other things that are a lot more important than winning an Atlantic County championship.
He said 90 percent or the players understood his position and but that some were disappointed to lose what likely would be their final chance to win a title.
Bunting said each team has as many as 25 players, putting more than 50 people together on the field during games.
Hiltner did not respond to a request for comment.